Challenges

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Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Blurb: From Jeanne Kalogridis, the bestselling author of The Borgia Bride and The Scarlet Contessa, comes a tale of love, loss and treachery set during the perilous days of the Spanish Inquisition
1481

Seville: The Inquisition makes its first appearance in Spain. Its target: conversos, Christians of Jewish descent—specifically those who practice Judaism secretly in their homes. The penalty for “crypto-Judaism”: Burning at the stake.

Marisol Garcia, a young conversa, is hurriedly wed to Gabriel, a civil lawyer working for the Inquisition, in hopes that he will protect her. But she still yearns for the childhood love who abandoned her four years earlier, and she’s shocked when he reappears suddenly at her wedding.

When her father is arrested and tortured, Marisol finds herself caught between her love for him and her desire to save the lives of her people. After becoming a favorite of the ruthless Queen Isabella, Marisol discovers a dangerous secret about her former lover, Antonio, and finds herself trapped in a life-threatening web of intrigue. As the Inquisition’s snares tighten around her, Marisol’s love for Antonio and loyalty to her Jewish family is tested as never before…

The Inquisitor’s Wife reveals the real motivation behind the Inquisition, a frank glance at a “saintly” queen, and the struggles of a maligned people against crushing forces.

Review: I love historical fiction, and I found the time period of this novel to be quite interesting, even if the plot was more than a little slow.

When you read this book you can't help but feel an intense dislike for Marisol, who hates her mother for the faith that she was born into. You also can't help but feel sorry for this group of people who have been continuously persecuted throughout history, whether by the crazy leaders of the Catholic church and the royals that followed them to Hitler.

Queen Isabella is known for being a good Catholic, and she produced good Catholic children, Henry VIII's Katherine of Aragon, is her daughter. However, as you read here, the Inquisition isn't just about the persecution of those of Jewish descent that still practiced their religion in private, it is about money.

The more that I read, the more disgusted I became with my own faith.

Once again, this book proves that so many bad things are done in the name of religion.

Though I strongly disliked Marisol, I was glad that as she found herself in the middle of the Inquisition that she embraced much of what her mother believed. She really did a complete turn around, in her attitude.

I still didn't like her much though.

She was too gullible and too concerned with herself throughout most of the novel and I couldn't really connect with either of the two men in her life, Gabriel, the man she was forced to marry or Antonio, the man she was betrothed too.

The book really seemed slow at the beginning as the author introduces the reader to Marisol's family and climate of Spain at the time just prior to the Inquisition. Once Marisol gets married things move along much faster.

This is a good historical read, with just the right amount of real characters and fictional, it is well researched and well written. My only gripe is Marisol. I just could not like her at all.